A guide to the Japanese underworld, Japanese pop-culture, yakuza and everything dark under the sun.

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It’s a cute Japanese dog photo because who doesn’t love these loyal dogs?

The argument that “It’s worse in XXX (China,North Korea, US) so it’s okay to have XXX (sexism/racism/fascism/wage slavery/death by overwork) in Japan” is silly. It’s like the accused in a murder trail arguing, “I should be declared innocent because I only killed one person in the robbery but my partner killed three.” Some things are never okay. Whataboutism is the last resort of the intellectually dishonest weasel. (Sorry kids).

I don’t think that the work we do is shouting to the wind. Every effort matters. Sometimes sarcasm is an effective tool. We try to be polite in our response to the comments but rudeness is sometimes met with rudeness. 親しき仲にも礼儀あり

Does any of our work make a difference? Yes.
Actually, in my time as a reporter, me being “Jake Adelstein”, on editing duty today–criticism of huge problems in Japan, via articles that I have written and written with others, resulted in better laws against human trafficking, comprehensive measures to deal with dioxin pollution, and the Japanese government recently admitting that there is a huge problem with exploitation of underage girls that needs to be dealt with.

I and many of the writers on this blog who live in Japan, love this country, and loving a country doesn’t mean remaining silent; it means speaking up about what is wrong, and correcting it. The effort doesn’t always work but sometimes it yields results. And people who can’t see any fault or social problems in their country or refuse to do anything about it or just as complicit in the rise “dark corporations,” greedy nationalists, death by overwork, exploitive enterprises, corrupt politicians, and the nuclear industrial complex that have done so much harm to the nation. For decades many warned of the dangers that TEPCO and its poorly managed nuclear power plants held. They were ignored. It doesn’t make them any less correct.

The battle to protect human rights, worker rights, equal rights, the environment, democracy, the public right to know, justice, gender equality and to fight poverty and end corruption are important struggles. All over the world. Japan is no exception.

I’m a Soto Zen Buddhist priest in training, which is a part of Japanese culture–surprise! I wouldn’t argue the metaphysics of Buddhism are true, but there are universal truths and there is a motto that I have as an editor and journalist and try to keep in my own personal life. Pardon the idealism but I believe this creed applies everywhere in the world.
So below is a modified version of our editorial policy, adapted from the Dhammapada (法句経）. Thank you for your consideration.

By all means, do go and tell your side of the story to them, motherfucker.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I heard that your daughter gives really good head… and so does your son.

Hey, I wanted to hear if your children are getting a good sleep because… when you get fired, and I get fired, you’re going to have to put your kids out of international school and into Japanese school and I’ll be teaching there. (The tape recording is below ↘）

Where I come from, you don’t mess with a man’s car, a man’s woman, a man’s dog, or a man’s job. You go behind someone’s back, and they come knockin on your front, with a shotgun. And I suppose you’ll send this to your mommy to defend you, right? (2011)

I have a talent for pissing people off. I’m sure it comes from a personality defect, of which I have many, and I will strive to work on improving my generally surly nature.

However, while I’m surly I don’t delight in the suffering of other people. Unfortunately, I have a cyberstalker who does. And when he can’t get to me, he attacks my friends. Or uses his virtual sock-puppets (Chris Beck, Kita (I don’t have the balls to use my real name) Yaesu to do it.

The worst troll in the world is one that claims to be a journalist—they abuse our profession by writing with malice, distorting the truth and mixing it with enough lies to make it seem plausible, and claim to be “reporting” to do it. I call them “trollnalists”.

There is a certain disgruntled self-professed journalist Christopher Johnson aka The Troll who has a personal vendetta against me and anyone who is my friend or employer. The reasons are very simple: I made the mistake of asking about his visa status when he was denied entry into Japan and/or deported in 2011. I then refused to write an article on his behalf in 2012. He took it very personally.

In a single skeptical tweet, I gained a stalker who has devoted five years to attacking me, my friends, women I’ve dated, and people who I work with. It was just a question. The answer was very hostile. So it began.

He’s accused me of 1) being addicted to meth-amphetamines 2) not having been a police reporter, which is probably because he can’t read enough Japanese to figure out what 警視庁記者クラブ means 3) being a womanizing asshole 4) plagiarism 5) being completely wrong about yakuza involvement in the nuclear industry 6) being mentally ill and in addition, he’s stalked and defamed my friends and colleagues, especially female reporters. It goes on and on.

He’ll probably alter his crazy blog posts soon to eliminate claim #5. He’s devoted 40 sprawling pages to my life which he continually rewrites when glaring errors are found. No one is sure what he does to support himself these days but perhaps his famous brother, Gordy Johnson aka Grady Johnson is supporting him. Who knows?

He is right about number 3. Gotta work on that. I can be an asshole and a womanizer. Guilty.

I didn’t mind so much his man-crush and attacks on me, but now he continues to harass other journalists I know, accusing them of plagiarism. He accuses them of taking money from corporations to slant their coverage, etc. He writes their editors, calls their offices, tweets at them endlessly. It’s hard to really explain how venal this individual is so I’ll let him speak for himself.

This is the kind of guy I’m dealing with. The kind of guy who left messages like this for his co-worker at NHK in 2007.

I will have to tell you that Tanaka-san and Iida-san are now well aware of your fucking bullshit. By all means, do go and tell your side of the story to them, motherfucker.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I heard that your daughter gives really good head… and so does your son.

Hey, I wanted to hear if your children are getting a good sleep because… when you get fired, and I get fired, you’re going to have to put your kids out of international school and into Japanese school and I’ll be teaching there.

It is a revolting thing to do, for which CJ has never apologized. It makes him sound like a pedophile–and although he spent many years in Thailand, there is no evidence that he is one. But it’s still a fucking awful thing to say. An apology would be nice.

Dave Schaufele, the NHK co-worker, sent JSRC a note on the incident:

“It’s time to stand up to this bully. I would have no hesitation beating the living crap out of this sicko after his comments about my children, as would any father in a similar position I suspect. So if he ever sees me again he better turn the other way and run.

Friends at NHK who know CJ recommended that I just ignore him because he’s mentally unstable. But if his slanderous meltdown rant is starting to spread I guess I need to reply and set the record straight.

I must admit I’m so short of time between work and family that I haven’t even started a Facebook page, let alone made 14,000 blog posts as “Greji” whose slang and poor spelling might indicate that English is not his first language. CJis simply delusional.

I suspect he knows I’m not Greji but was simply looking for a way to use NHK’s name in the headline and fabricate a high profile story that would make him seem like a victim instead of a predator. CJ knows that his own actions resulted in his loss of work but his alter ego is trying to find someone else to take responsibility.

CJ pulled all the hateful slander completely out of his ass. I have many Jewish friends and have never made any anti-Semitic remarks nor written anything about Johnson’s girlfriend or family and therefore he can provide no examples at all in his rant.

I made no phone calls to him period; another fabrication to try and justify his pedophile phone messages left on my keitai answering system. Playback is continuous once activated and no alterations were made whatsoever.

I do sometimes get a sunburned neck when working outdoors but have no neo-nazi contacts or own any guns. I guess those were the most hurtful fabrications Johnson could come up with in his appeal for sexual-predator sainthood.

He’s a mental case whose 2 sexual harassment complaints on file at NHK got him fired in 1995 but he managed to sneak back in years later. I was unaware of his past and when he first started work I actually tried to help the guy out as a fellow Canadian by giving him over $1,000 in extra work, which he thanked me for by inviting me over to his XXXs place for a beer. Seems like he’s been freeloading off her for years. But as the old saying goes – no good deed goes unpunished. CJ left town on short notice and our NHK boss asked me to cover a couple of his shifts. When he returned he went psycho and tried to get me fired, which backfired because the bosses remembered that he was the pervert they got rid of in ’95. When he made disgusting sexual comments about my young children I played his phone messages for my boss and it was 3 strikes you’re out – again – for that sicko.

I guess CJ figured that if I hadn’t posted his phone messages in 5 years I have probably lost or erased the file so it’s safe to slander me and headline NHK’s name to regain his Economist notoriety. I did erase the file because I didn’t want to hear his voice again. For the record I haven’t spent a minute thinking about the asshole during the past five years and this is my first and only blog post related to him in all that time.

Now you know – the rest of the story.”

He does what trolls do. He writes my employers, he makes threatening calls to the FCCJ. He has a penchant for harassing my female friends especially. Maybe in his mind they are the weaker sex. I gather he’s a misanthrope and a misogynist. I wish he would just attack me. It’s such a dishonorable thing to do to attack the friends of the person you hate. Even the worst yakuza aren’t usually that low.

He is angry that I would not take up his cause or defend him. I don’t know him well and I didn’t think he had a position that I could defend and I politely declined to offer my support. By asking one pointed question, about his visa status, he perhaps feels that I sprung a hole in his credibility dyke, which caused him a flood of attack and ridicule.

I don’t know; I’m not a mind reader.

Recently his threats have escalated. He is very fond of threatening to sue people for slander. He also poses threats to them as questions under the guise of being a journalist. He makes sexual slurs about female reporters. He has spent an inordinate amount of time trying to make me angry and scare individuals working with me. For many months, I ignored him. He went away. I ignored him again. But he came back and started harassing anyone he can identify as my friend or employer.

I realized that stepping back was the wrong approach. It was a cowardly act to do nothing. This man under the guise of ”journalism” has terrorized individual after individual because everyone hopes that he will grow bored and find a new person to attack and stalk–and thus they do nothing. This is understandable. But because no one stands up to this bully, the number of those who have suffered because of him keep growing.

Albert Einstein once said, “The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” Einstein was right. I’m doing something about.

The more I know about the individual and his past, the more I began to feel increasingly uneasy. He has a history of making insidious threats. On October 16th, 2007, he left disgusting messages on the answering machine of an NHK colleague that implied he would sexually molest the individual’s children. The tape contains what seems to be the sounds of said journalist masturbating over the phone.

Allegedly, the dispute The Troll had with a co-worker ended in him making several obscene calls to the man’s home phone which resulted in his firing from NHK. NHK has not confirmed this although others who were working at NHK have and so has The Troll in his own blog.

Transcripts of threats made to NHK co-worker October 16th, 2007

The story of the Troll who threatened to molest the children of a fellow NHK worker

録音テープ（出所不明）被害者はNHK職員だとそうです。

10月16日2007年

Troll：

I will have to tell you that Tanaka-san and Iida-san are now well aware of your fucking bullshit. By all

means, do go and tell your side of the story to them, motherfucker.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I heard that your daughter gives really good head… and so does your son.

和訳：飯田さんと田中さんはあなたの嘘八百をよく知っているよと教えてやろうと思った。どう

ぞ、あなたの言い分を二人に言ってみな、この糞野郎。ところが、言い忘れたが、あなたの娘は

フェラチオがうまいそうだね。。。あなたの息子も。

新しいメッセージ、１０月１６日、火曜日、(平成１９年)

午後９時２２分

Sounds of what may be masturbation

約２０秒ジョンソンが自慰している音が聞こえる

メッセージを保存しました。次の新しいメセージです。

１０月１７日、水曜日、午前、１０時５８分。

Hey, I wanted to hear if your children are getting a good sleep because… when you get fired, and I get

fired, you’re going to have to put your kids out of international school and into Japanese school….

子供はよく寝ているか。聞きたかったな。あなたと僕は首になったら、あなたは自分の子供をイン

ターナショナルスクールから退学させなくちゃならない。そして子供を公立学校に入れると。。。

（俺はそこで教えて待っていますよ）

For the record, this is his explanation:

“The letter enraged ●●●。 His new round of phone calls and letters now insulted ●●● and my family,including my brother, leader of one of Canada’s most popular bands at that time. I couldn’t take it anymore. Regrettably, I lost my temper. During a heated exchange of insults by email and phone, I left a nasty message on his phone. I responded to his insult that, “I hear there’s a job opening for a teacher who likes children, right up your alley”. In effect, I said to him: “if you get me fired from NHK, I will have to get a job teaching English again, and I might end teaching your children.” ●● claims he recorded it. He probably took the comments out of context, and possibly tampered with them, given his skills at voice acting and doctoring evidence and twisting facts…”

You can listen for yourself.

In addition, in May of 2011 he also made several threats to the journalist who replaced him at France 24.

Although I received the journalist’s permission to post this and verified it with three sources, I have deleted the name of the journalist threatened and changed the name of the one making the threats. Why? Because it’s customary practice in Japan to not publicize the names of people who are possibly mentally ill and may be under investigation for criminal offenses.

Other than blocking out some names, to protect the individuals from the loathsome attacks and smears of the troll, I have altered not a word, but put some sections in bold that are particularly disturbing. I’m reasonably sure the Troll aka Hostile Journalist will coming looking for me since by opposing him, I’m obviously a mofo.

We shall see.

PS. To Hostile Journalist: Do not even think about threatening (脅迫罪) anyone who cooperated with this article other than myself. Have some decency.

The story of the Troll threatening the journalist aka “The Mofo” that “stole” his job

Troll’s Letters To His Replacement at France 24 May-June 2011

The Troll, quoted here as “Hostile Journalist” sent a series of hostile emails after being fired by France 24. The reasons he was fired or let go may or may not have to do with the emails he sent. The emails were provided by a past victims of the Troll and on my own initiative I have kept his name non-public for fear that The Troll will retaliate against him as well.Hopefully, he is intelligent enough to realize that the emails he has sent constitute a threat. If he has a problem with this posting, I hope he will be a man and come after me and not the journalist who was kind enough to give me the materials. The letters began with an unsolicited posting from Troll.

The Troll Writing To France 24 Journalist Who Replaced Him

20 May 2011

Dear Journalist

I’m Troll, a veteran Tokyo-based journalist who has covered almost every major story in Asia and around the world since 1987, including the wars in Yugoslavia, East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq, for major media worldwide.

I’m going to cut straight to the point about this. I do not allow people to take freelance strings that I have cultivated over the years. For your information, Loick Berrou hired me in July 2007 as the France 24 Anglo reporter in Tokyo, and since that time I have done hundreds of live phoners and on-camera

reports from Tokyo (often using the satellite feedpoints at Reuters and NHK), Tibet, China, Burma and Thailand (using feedpoints at Asiaworks).

I have taken great risks to build up the network. I was the only foreign journalist in Lhasa the week of the riots in March 2008, and I broke the story worldwide on France 24, beating BBC, CNN and everybody else. I also snuck inside Burma and reported on the crackdown on protesters, and Cyclone

Nargis, for the network. Last year, I did a flurry of reports amid gunfire and explosions during the battle of Bangkok (working in the same battle-zone where France 24 cameraman Nelson Rand was shot several times.)

Immediately after the March 11 quake, I spent a great deal of time and effort trying to arrange logistics for●●●, one of the network’s top Francophone correspondents (you can see the work we did together on the documentary The Battle of Bangkok). I also did 60 live reports for France 24 the first four weeks

after the quake, while you were working for somebody else, apparently.

I do not know what university training or professional qualifications you have in journalism, and I’m not familiar with the impact of your work. I’ve worked around most of the top journalists in Asia, and I don’t recall meeting you.

As for me, I have been through a weeding out process, of four years at Canada’s top journalism school at Carleton University in Ottawa, and then some of the leading networks and newspapers in Canada, before coming to work as a professional journalist in Asia. I learned to speak and read Japanese beginning in 1989, and covered the Kobe earthquake and sarin gas attack for CBC TV in Canada and others in 1995.

Like many other pros, I naturally have issues with amateurs who come to Japan, declare themselves journalists, hang around the FCCJ to pick up work, and then consider themselves experts in our field. Doctors and lawyers would not tolerate this in their fields either, and I think I have every right to call someone’s bluff on this.

While I was covering the TEPCO presser today, I found out from●●, ●●● and a senior person in Paris that you, somehow, have become the France 24 correspondent in Tokyo. I do not accept this, for any reason, and I will do whatever is necessary to protect a position that I have earned with the network, at great personal risk and sacrifice.

It’s not personal, it’s professional, and I can assure you that I will stake my 25-year career on this. If I tried to steal someone’s string, which has earned them thousands of dollars over the years, I would expect them to fight me for it.

I will tell you very frankly that I am a 6-foot, 200-pound guy from a rough part of the Detroit area, and I’ve been through too much – 9 wars, where I lost 7 friends – to let anyone disrespect me.

★★★

The Troll later discovered his email was forwarded to France 24 prompting another email.

★★★

21 May

That is very sleazy to send a letter, which I sent to you and you alone, to my employers at France 24. If you have any manhood, you will meet me in person to settle this. And you can bring your pals XXX and the other jerks who diss me on Facebook and at the FCCJ as well

For the record: I was approached in Feb to work with F24 and have done a few bits of work with them since. I have no interest in who has worked with them in the past, continues to work with them now, or will work with them in the future.

I have no idea what issues you have with F24, but please take them up with the organization.

Equally, I have no idea what issues you have with ‘jerks’ on FB or the FCCJ, but please take them up with the people involved.

The Troll Responds To The Journalist

Who the hell are you talkin to me like this? You think your ass is powerful? You are a 5-foot 6, 150 lb dweek in shorts and sunglasses looking over your shoulder in a crowd. And I suppose you’llsend this to your mommy to protect you, right?

You aren’t the asshole ●● who smashed my brother’s head against the grocery store wall, and beat up my father in front of my mother and sister across the street from our house, and then laughed at my little brother in the court house. aYou aren’t the crackhead who shot my uncle ●● in the head in Detroit. You aren’t the home invader who murdered my brother’s drummer in his house in ●● this Christmas. You aren’t the gang that strangled me and beat me unconscious and broke my nose and ribs and left me naked in a park to die in Nairobi, or the jerks who mugged me at knifepoint in Rio de Janeiro. Youaren’t the Chetniks who severed the head of my roommate ●●●in Vukovar. You aren’t Khaled Sheikh Mohammed who cut up Daniel Pearl like a goat a few weeks after we had Thanksgiving dinner in Islamabad. You aren’t the Taliban motherfuckers who murdered●● and raped and killed the women in the van in Afghanistan. And you aren’t the gunmen who shot ●●●●● three times last year when we were working for France 24 in Bangkok. You are a spineless sewer rat who sends a private confidential letter to my boss to shaft me out of a job worth perhaps 10,000 year or more, a job I earned while you were a driver with another network and writing an FCCJ article slagging off serious pro journalists who hired you. Where I come from, you don’t mess with a man’s car, a man’s woman, a man’s dog, or a man’s job. You go behind someone’s back, and they come knockin on your front, with a shotgun. And I suppose you’ll send this to your mommy to defend you, right?

Where I come from, you don’t mess with a man’s car, a man’s woman, a man’s dog, or a man’s job. You go behind someone’s back, and they come knockin on your front, with a shotgun. And I suppose you’ll send this to your mommy to defend you, right?

★★★

The Journalist Responds To The Troll

Mr. Troll,

It seems you got a rough deal off F24, which is a shame, but I really think your anger is directed in the wrong direction. To state the obvious, I don’t make the hiring decisions. I was asked to work with them in Feb and was surprised not to hear from them during the post-quake period. It seems they used someone else – that would be you. Now they’ve asked me to do the odd phoner.

I don’t know why they they’ve made that decision- it’s between you and them.

I was more than a little surprised to come in on Friday night to a long abusive threatening email from someone I’ve never met. I forwarded it to the people at F24 – ●● saying I had no idea what your history with them is and the situation needed clarifying .If you wanted a respectful response, you should have a sent a respectful email. This will be my last response to any insulting/ threatening mails.

★★★

“If you wanted a respectful response, you should have a sent a respectful email. This will be my last response to any insulting/ threatening mails.

That seems to be the best approach to dealing with this fellow. He does make a lot of threats. He, or his proxy, even threatened the editors at Wikipedia, when they refused to post an entry for him. He accused an employee of Google Japan of deliberately altering search results to make him look bad. He does manage to get under my skin. However, I’m certainly not the only one.

If you’d like to know more, please check out Japan Probe which has article after article about his not so amusing attacking on others journalists, his implied threats, his rantings, and his career history as a malcontent and troublemaker in Japan.

I took this post down once. I’m reposting it so that everyone knows that this is a man that threatens to molest children and viciously attacks other members of the journalism community. He may be a journalist; he is also very close to being a cyber stalker. I won’t write his name because he thrives on attention. I tweeted a parody of his blog today that has his actual name on it. I should have read it closer. I was taught that the mentally unstable should have their names undisclosed because they aren’t entirely responsible for their acts. I don’t know if that is the case with this individual but I suspect as much. Possibly a sociopath with delusional disorder. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

I won’t engage with this individual in any way. Because there’s a difference between him and me. I give a damn about my sources and my friends. I’d rather people think I’m a jerk than violate the three things I believe in: protect your sources, write the truth, and if you can’t do both, then don’t write the story. Some people may not agree with that philosophy. It’s what I believe in. I don’t have a perfect score on protecting my sources. I get to live with that for the rest of my life. I atone and I carry on.

Because where I come from, when you attack a man’s friends and defame them, stalk women, and threaten to harm children–you’re someone who needs to go to jail until you learn to behave like a human being, not a troll. Or am I simply too old-fashioned?

I recognize that people have a right to start their lives over–that they deserve a second chance. And I’d be willing to give this man a second chance, if he showed any remorse, if he apologized to all those he’s wronged. He won’t do that. He won’t even answer three simple questions 1) Did you threaten to molest a man’s children when you were working at NHK? 2) Did you threaten another reporter in 2011? 3) Have you misused the position of being a journalist to harass women that reject you and people who disagree with you?

There is no solution to dealing with a man like this. As long as he has access to the internet, he will continue to try and destroy those whom he perceives as his enemies—and there a lot of them. He’s bordering on criminal behavior and when he finally crosses the line, I hope to see that at last he gets the attention he deserves. Because where I come from, when you attack a man’s friends and defame them, stalk women, and threaten to harm children–you’re someone who needs to go to jail until you learn to behave like a human being, not a troll. Or am I simply too old-fashioned?

Today marks the start of The Year Of The Dog. I like dogs and I like them because I think journalists should be the guard dogs of a free society. We bark, we bite, we protect democracy and the public right to know. That’s our duty. ワンワン.

If you’re a lapdog for the powers that be, like executives at Fox News or News Corporation, journalism may be a rewarding and easy job.

Being a free-lance foreign correspondent and investigative reporter in Japan these days is a lot like being the private detective in the Dashiell Hammett novel, Red Harvest. You’re working for a newspaper editor who’s dead before you ever get to meet him (sounds like the newspaper business in general) and you have to struggle to get paid the money owed to you. You deal with gangs and thugs and crooked politicians, pitting them against each other, appearing to take work from anyone and at the end of the day, if you’ve brought someone to justice and you’re the last man standing: you’ve won. Collect your cash and go home.

Actually, it’s not really like much like that at all, but I wanted to start this article with a hard-boiled simile.

Jokes aside, making a living as freelance reporter in Japan these days is rewarding, but risky and unstable, and there are fewer and fewer of us doing it full time.

There are a lot of reasons for that. The number of working journalists is decreasing every year, while the number of people working in public relations keeps going up. Newspapers and magazines that have bureaus in Japan or that will pay for stories from Japan keep declining in number. Time’s Tokyo Bureau closed years ago. Newsweek folded. Dow Jones culled a large number of senior reporters this year. Reuters hires and fires at a schizophrenic pace. Bloomberg downsized. CNN and CNBC are barely here. The Los Angeles Times bureau once existed but I can only barely remember it. It used to have an office in the Yomiuri Building,

To my delight from spring of 2015 until the fall of 2016, I was a special correspondent for the L.A. Times. Then the newspaper ran out of money. No more budget for Japan.

Well, if you read the expose from the L.A. Times Guild (the labor union formed this year) it may not even be that they ran out of money – but rather that TRONC, Inc., the corporation running the newspaper into the ground, just sucks up all the profits and awards them to its executives, not the reporters. It certainly doesn’t spend more than it has to on paying for actual reporting. The problems at the Los Angeles Times are a microcosm of what’s happening all over the media – fewer and fewer people are asked to do more work with fewer resources. That’s the case for regular employees.

I applaud the union for actually standing up for members’ rights as workers and against mismanagement.

Maybe they’ll accomplish something.

Maybe some rich philanthropist will buy the newspaper as Jeff Bezos of Amazon did with the Washington Post, and restore it to glory.

And maybe I’ll do that job again if that happens. It was a great gig.

Mark that word, gig. Martin Fackler, who tried freelancing for a while but has now returned to the New York Times, says the experience taught him that “Freelancers are the Uber drivers of the new journalism gig economy. Everything is on a transactional basis, with no benefits or guarantees. You get more freedom, but pay for it with lower living standards and no job stability – like the rest of the gig economy.”

I’ve been a journalist since 1993–in Japan. Next year, I’ll have been doing it 25 years, a quarter of a century, more than half my life. At 48, I have now been a journalist half my life.

Half of those years (12.5, to be exact) were spent working as a regular employee at the world’s largest newspaper. I was a reporter and a regular employee for life aka (seishain/正社員), with the promise of a pension, all my insurance covered, paid vacation with use of the company’s corporate vacation facilities, an actual expense account, a bonus twice a year and a stable income. Sure, I worked 80-hour weeks but I didn’t have time to think about the work-life balance because there was none. Life was work and since I liked the work – investigating, interviewing, writing – it worked for me.

I’ve been working freelance since 2006. I’d like to say that it has gotten easier but in fact, even as you become well known, or relatively well known, life doesn’t get any easier. The joy of freelance work is that you can to some extent pick and choose the stories you want to write and who you write them for. The sadness of freelance work is that income is so unpredictable that you can’t really walk away from a gig and you have to pay constant attention to the news for a story that someone might want because it’s timely.

I currently write regularly for the Japan Times, ZAITEN, the Daily Beast and Forbes. I write for other publications as well but those are my main gigs. And I’m happy to have them.

However, to make my rent, I have to write a lot and I do part-time jobs. I do consulting work. I appear on Japanese television shows. I write short books and I write long books. I run a blog. I am constantly hustling.

Every day, I spend an hour or more reading newspapers and magazines in Japanese, looking for what may be a good story. I scan the articles and put them in a file. I make appointments and send out letters requesting interviews for the stories that I think are interesting. I answer email. I meet people in the afternoon, or attend press conferences. In the evening, I try to meet up with sources and maintain those relationships. I don’t have an expense account, so cheap bars and izakaya I like. If it’s an expensive place, I eat cheap somewhere first and then just have drinks.

You don’t have job security as freelancer and sometimes you don’t even get respect.

At least in Japan, you can get public health insurance, at an affordable rate. It’s one reason I can’t afford to leave Japan. That is a great perk of being a freelancer here.

By the way, the term for non-regular correspondents in the industry is “stringer.” It makes you sound sort of like a barnacle.

Below the stringer is “the fixer.” Fixers set up the meetings for the reporters coming to Tokyo, often doing the interpreting and translation of the materials. They are often not even credited for their work.

I rarely do fixing for anyone but I will for one public radio station because their correspondent is great; she credits me for the work I do on a story. That’s nice.

I’m not alone in struggling with the freelance life. Willie Pesek, author of Japanization: What the World Can Learn from Japan’s Lost Decades and recipient of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers prize for commentary also joined the freelance ranks this year. What he has to say is worth hearing:

Six months into my freelance existence, the very first of my career, I’m struck by George Orwell’s observation: “The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.” Having a full-time journalism gig strikes me as a similar tradeoff. The certainty of a reliable paycheck, medical benefits and access to an HR department has its merits. But the liberty freelancing affords – who you write for, which topics, which arguments -– is its own joy after two decades with major news companies.

But the biggest pros of this existence -– like working when I want to -– can also be key drawbacks. The main challenge, I’m finding, is maintaining a reasonable life/work balance. At times, while juggling various writing assignments, my inclination is to work around the clock. Creating boundaries -– like closing the laptop and having a life –- is a work in progress for me. So is knowing when to say “when.” Quality and actually has never been more important in this Orwellian fake-new world, but the quantity imperative gets in the way. Part of the tension, of course, relates to making a living –- one’s natural reluctance to turn down writing assignments. Finding a balance is something all freelancers will struggle with more and more in the years ahead. It’s a fact of this trade that quality comes first.

Then there’s the Tokyo problem. In my 15 years in Asia, I’ve always been a regional writer, which is proving to be an asset as a freelance. Lots of demand for columns for China, India, North Korea, the Philippines. Japan, not so much. Sadly, many overseas editors favor “weird Japan” items over, say, reality checks on Abenomics. But, hey, Tokyo is still a great, great city in which to live. The domestic story here, though, can be a hard sell. The Abe government using this latest electoral mandate to make big things happen would be the gift that keeps on giving for freelancers.

Willie, has a good point. Japan isn’t as important as it used to be.

I kind of wish sometimes that I hadn’t focused so much on Japan. But I’m okay with that. In the end, I may be working more hours now than I did as a regular employee. And as any freelancer will tell you, you also have to spend a lot of time on social media, getting people to read your articles, responding to those who have read them. Now and then you have to munch on the trolls who plague anyone who writes about Japan in a critical way.

Sometimes, people close to me ask me why I don’t change jobs. Here’s the best answer I can give.

Japan is my home. I love Japan. My children are Japanese. Most of my friends live here. Many Japanese people here are hard-working, honest and polite.

That doesn’t mean the society doesn’t have problems, such as child poverty, gender inequality and discrimination against: the handicapped, women, foreigners, especially Korean Japanese. Japan has a pestilent well-entrenched mob. There are nuclear dangers, staggering injustice in the legal system, repression of the free press, sexual assault on women with impunity for many assailants, rampant labor exploitation, death by overwork, and political corruption. Ignoring the problems doesn’t make them better. If you are offended by that, rethink your love of Japan.

I believe that journalism, especially investigative journalism, is a force for good and for maintaining a healthy society. It’s a vocation, not just a job. Sure some of the work is crappy, including writing about a series of crap-themed kanji instructional books for children—but you also get to do some enormous good.

Weird as it sounds, this year I took the vows to become a Zen Buddhist priest and I am one now. Not full-time.

It’s not easy being an investigative journalist and keeping the Ten Grave Precepts of a Soto Buddhist priest but there is a point where the two professions match up.

To paraphrase the Hokukyo, this is what we do.

Conquer anger with compassion.

Conquer evil with goodness.

Conquer trolls with humor and sarcasm.

Conquer ignorance with knowledge.

Conquer stinginess with generosity.

Conquer lies with truth.

The monetary rewards are not so great. Sometimes, the spiritual rewards make it seem like the best job in the world.

The Yamaguchi-gumi had posted a sign around October 20th, that they would be refraining from having the annual Halloween Party this year, due to “various circumstances”.

A liberal translation of the tricky announcement that the Yamaguchi-gumi would be calling off Hallowen.”Every year on October 31, we have held the traditional Halloween [party]. However, this fiscal year, due to a number of various circumstances, we will be halting the event. We understand that we are making the children who were looking forward to this very sad, but next year we absolutely will hold the event, so please look forward to it. Thank you for allowing us to inform you.”It was an oblique reference to the violent gang wars between factions of the group. There was an attempted assassination of the leader of the Ninkyo Yamaguchi-gumi, a splinter faction, in September. His bodyguard ended up taking the bullet. It seemed like a good call not have the event–no one wants kids caught in the crossfire.

The media reported the non-event, including this reporter. Tensions were low, the children who looked forward to the event, which was restarted last year after a one year hiatus, were unhappy.

Lining up for cotton candy at the Yamaguchi-gumi HQ. Photo: Natasha ShewaNot only a sack of great Halloween candy but cotton candy in a Pretty Cure (Glitter Force) bag. My daughter would have loved it–when she was five years old. (Photo by Natasha Shewa)One of the few regrets in life I’ve had was not taking my kids to trick or treat at the Yamaguchi-gumi Headquarter so they could learn the gentle art of extortion.

The Yamaguchi-gumi did have their annual halloween party after all (2014 photo)

The Treat

Suddenly at around 4pm on October 31st (Japan time), gangsters opened the shutters of their headquarters and began distributing bags of candy to the neighborhood kids, as they have done for over a decade. A gangster dressed as a giant jack-o-lantern waved children inside the compound. The yard was garishly decorated with Halloween lights, blow-up pumpkins and ghosts, and a cotton candy machine according to those who attended.

The neighborhood children were delighted. Each garish bag was decorated with jack-o-lanterns and “Happy Halloween” in English. The bags had cookies, crackers, and chocolate filled koalas.“They did celebrate after all,” rejoiced one local woman. “Not only were the decorations great and the gift bags full of tasty stuff, there were two big lines for cotton candy. And the gangsters were super nice.”Some members were in costume distributing bags saying “Happy Halloween!” while others were in white jumpsuits and bullet-proof vests patrolling he area as the police looked on. “Security was top notch,” stated one mother who attended.

One father in the area of Indian descent wrote me, “The kids got one bag each, worth about 800 yen ($7) worth of stuff. My wife said it was a really fun event.” Many in the large Indian community in Kobe were convinced that they played a role in the tradition, recounting stories of visiting the headquarters in their youth. One woman remembers that eventually Japanese school children began following their lead on Halloween–making costumes out of black garbage bags and tagging along. This year, as a special bonus, the Cotton Candy was packaged in a Pretty Cure (Glitter Force) Anime bags. My daughter Beni would have been delighted–if she was still five years old.

For a haul like this, I’d go trick or treating at the Yamaguchi-gumi HQ, if I was 10 years old.

No Masks Necessary

For the rest of the world, the Japanese mafia, even the well-organized Yamaguchi-gumi are frightening creatures. They don’t have to hide in Japan. They don’t wear masks but many of them wear sunglasses and are covered in ornate tattoos, often with violent images, and have a characteristic scowl. Some members cut off a finger in atonement for their own mistakes or on behalf of their friends to settle a dispute. A chopped off finger to atone for your mistakes is known as a shiniyubi (死に指) “a dead finger”. When a pinkie is sacrificed for another person, it’s the more honorable ikiyubi (生き指) or “living finger.” Many yakuza also have facial scars. This dates back to a time when instead of killing a rival, some thugs would just cut the person’s face and let them live. A small number of yakuza deliberately cut their own faces, to give the impression that they had survived a deadly confrontation.

In Japan, to discreetly discuss the yakuza, some people still use their index finger to pantomime cutting their face.

The yakuza derive their revenue from racketeering, gambling, fraud, insider trading, blackmail and other unsavory acts. Many members though, also run legitimate businesses. The Yamaguchi-gumi ostensibly forbids its members from engaging in theft, robbery, and drug dealing. They claim to be a humanitarian organization and are regulated under Japanese laws but not banned outright.

Tricky Yakuza

The police were less than delighted with today’s “trick.” An organized crime control detective from the Kansai area said, “We weren’t completely caught off guard but it was a risky move in light of the current gang war. I think their rivals (Kobe-Yamaguchi-gumi and the Ninkyo Yamaguchi-gumi) were snow-jobbed but now I get the ‘trick-or-treat’ thing’ now.” He went on to explain that the party was good PR for the organization. The false cancellation may have been an effort to stave off trouble and the press, he speculated.

Local press has also noted that many people in Japan are now bringing lawsuits against yakuza groups to force them to vacate their local offices. It appears that this year’s Halloween Party was the gang’s way of forestalling this, while gaining the goodwill of the community. Much of the media came late to the party, but the local newspaper, Kobe Shimbun, posted a slightly critical story around 7:30 pm. They also removed from their website an October 21st article stating that the Halloween party was going to be cancelled, “Probably due to the influence of the gang war.”

I hastily updated my own article—which was hard to do from the scene of the multiple murders at Zama City. One former Kabukicho talent scout was arrested that day for desecration of a corpse, after police found nine severed human heads and body parts in his apartment. They were looking for a missing woman–they probably found her. It was a grisly Halloween indeed. All things being equal, I wish I’d stuck to my original plans to go to Kobe.

In the end, the Yamaguchi-gumi tricked us all. But in some ways, it was the highlight of my dark Halloween.

The police were pissed and so were some of the media. The kids were just happy to get their candy. And it may be the only time in their little lives that they get to turn the tables on the yakuza and safely extort something from them. Trick or treat!?

In honour of Japan’s Celebration of Cinema Day, December 1st, we’ve reposted some reviews and articles on classic films. Some good, some bad, some epic.

AVN: Aliens Versus Ninja (エイリアンvs 忍者）released in 2010 is a camp classic for both lovers of Alien films and Ninja films. I was delighted to find that the super-deluxe release of AVN included on the second disc a 15 minute short-film エイリアン Vs 極道 (Alien Versus Yakuza), a Yuji Shinomura film . If you find the movie in the bargain bin at the local Tsutaya, it’s worth picking up. The plot is simple. Young yakuza and his older brother–in the yakuza sense–accidentally run over an Alien while on their way to late-night Karaoke in the boss’s car. They aren’t quite sure what to do with the body. They don’t even realize it’s an alien, believing that they’ve just run over an unlucky foreigner. “Maybe half?”

Our hapless yakuza anti-heroes run over an alien and decide to get rid of the body. Not sure exactly what it is, they decide it must be a foreigner–and probably half-Japanese.

After a short debate, they decide to dismember the body and get rid of the evidence. Young yakuza goes to scour the glove department for a big knife, buried amidst piles of trashy magazines, but when he comes back the trunk is empty and his older brother (兄貴/aniki) is acting strangely. Could it be that Older Brother realized younger brother had slept with his girlfriend or has something stranger happened? Even when younger brother confesses and makes a peace offering; “Only once! Only slept with her once. I saved you a seat at the speed-dating thing （合コン・gokon)–can we call it even?” –Aniki’s anger is not quelled. What happens next is almost totally predictable but even after the young yakuza confronts the ousted alien, accusing him of being an 当たり屋 (atariya), a con man who shakes people down by throwing themselves in front of a car and suing for damages–the fight isn’t quite over. Because this Alien has a driver’s license.

Young yakuza throws a cigarette at the alien, accusing him of being an 当たり屋 (a professional con man who throws himself in front of cars to extort insurance money.)

I wouldn’t want to spoil the rest of the film for our readers but it does solve the ancient question: in a battle between an alien and a yakuza, who would win? Note: Some may argue that this question was settled in the masterpiece Predators, where the lone Inagawa-kai member in the film faces down a Predator with an ancient samurai sword, but Predators are really not your standard aliens. The film is bloody, silly, and probably unrealistic* but in the short yakuza film genre, it’s in a class by itself.

*For instance, I don’t think it’s possible to catch a bullet in your teeth but I’m not a war reporter so I’ll reserve judgement.

Yakuza are not the exception to the rule. For example, instead of saying “going to jail” (刑務所に行く: keimusho ni iku), they say “going to university” (大学に行く : daigaku ni iku). This phrase has a special meaning and is not used randomly. First, yakuza consider that jail is informative, a required kind of rite of passage to become a true gangster. Then, because prison is actually, for the yakuza, an educational place, in a scholastic sense. If they are rich enough (and it is often the case, or their oyabun’s position, given that one of his duties is to provide assistance to his subordinates), they can learn calligraphy, painting, but also the art of haiku, among other things. They get books from other clan members, but others are provided by the Government within the prison. One can find in these prison libraries masterpiece of literature, but more surprisingly, economic or even law books. In fact, the yakuza often get out jail with a better academic level than they had at the time of their incarceration. This “Prison University” is even more important to them than the majority of yakuza has never graduate, and many of them have even stopped attending school before the end of high school.
To talk about jail, yakuza also use terms such as “slammer” (豚箱 : butabako)–literally “pigbox” or “hard labor” (懲役に行く : chōeki ni iku); despite its few advantages (when you have the money to afford them), prison remains a detention center, not a holiday club.
Some of the less bright yakuza spend so much time in jail that they are mostly yakuza in name only. Amongst themselves, they are referred to a ”prison yakuza” (懲役ヤクザ: choeki yakuza).

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today designated Tadamasa Goto, an individual associated with the Japanese Yakuza criminal network, pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13581, which targets significant transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and their supporters. Today’s action is part of the Treasury Department’s ongoing efforts to protect the U.S. financial system from the malign influence of TCOs and to expose persons who are supporting them or acting on their behalf.

“Tadamasa Goto possesses deep ties to the Yakuza and has been instrumental to its criminal operations around the world,” said OFAC Acting Director John E. Smith. “Today’s action denies Goto access to the U.S. financial system and demonstrates our resolve to aggressively combat transnational criminal organizations and their supporters.”

Tadamasa Goto began working in the Yakuza as a member of the Inagawa-kai. The Inagawa-kai is the third largest Yakuza group and was designated by OFAC pursuant to E.O. 13581 on January 23, 2013. Goto subsequently joined the Yamaguchi-gumi, the largest and most prominent Yakuza group, which OFAC designated pursuant to E.O. 13581 on February 23, 2012. Goto served in several senior leadership positions within the Yamaguchi-gumi before becoming the head of the Goto-gumi, which was a powerful Yamaguchi-gumi faction. The Goto-gumi was responsible for setting up a network of front companies on behalf of the Yamaguchi-gumi.

Goto headed the Goto-gumi until October 2008, when he was expelled and forced into retirement from the Yamaguchi-gumi and relocated to Cambodia. Despite his retirement from mob life, Yakuza figure Tadamasa Goto reportedly still associates with numerous gang-tainted companies that he utilizes to facilitate his legitimate and illicit business activities. He continues to support the Yamaguchi-gumi and remnants of his semi-defunct Goto-gumi by laundering their funds between Japan and Cambodia. Additionally, Goto has reportedly established links with the notoriously violent Namikawa Mutsumi-kai group, formerly known as the Kyushu Seido-kai, which is recognized by Japan as a Yakuza group.

The memoirs of deposed Yamaguchi-gumi boss, Tadamasa Goto, still engaged in criminal activity. There is no remorse expressed for his victims or those his men maimed or killed under his reign. “Pardon me, but you’re a despicable human being.”

Tadamasa Goto will enter priesthood after falling foul of yakuza leaders for allegedly passing information to the FBI.

Tadamasa Goto, one of Japan‘s most notorious underworld bosses, is to enter the Buddhist priesthood less than a year after his volatile behaviour caused a rift in the country’s biggest crime syndicate.

As leader of a yakuza – or Japanese mafia – gang, Goto amassed a fortune from prostitution, protection rackets and white-collar crime, while cultivating a reputation for extreme violence.

Tomorrow, his life will take a decidedly austere turn when he begins training at a temple in Kanagawa prefecture south of Tokyo, the Sankei Shimbun newspaper said today, citing police sources.

The 66-year-old, whose eponymous gang belonged to the powerful Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate, was expelled from the yakuza fraternity last October after a furious row with his bosses over his conduct.

Known as Japan’s answer to John Gotti, the infamous mafia don, Goto reportedly upset his seniors amid media reports that he had invited several celebrities to join his lavish birthday celebrations last September.

Several months earlier he had attracted more unwanted publicity following revelations that he had offered information to the FBI in return for permission to enter the US for a life-saving liver transplant in 2001.

At an emergency meeting last October the Yamaguchi-gumi’s bosses – minus their leader, Shinobu Tsukasa, who is serving a six-year prison term for illegal arms possession – expelled Goto, splitting his gang into rival factions.

According to the Sankei, Goto will formally join the priesthood on 8 April – considered to be Buddha’s birthday in Japan – in a private ceremony.

The former gangster was quoted as describing the occasion as “solemn and meaningful, in which Buddha will make me his disciple and enable me to start a new life”.

In his deal with the FBI, Goto reportedly gave up vital information about yakuza front companies, as well as the names of senior crime figures and the mob’s links to North Korea.

Underworld experts have pointed out, however, that the bureau could have gleaned the same information from yakuza fanzines.

Goto’s transplant was performed at UCLA medical centre in Los Angeles In the spring of 2001 by the respected surgeon Dr Ronald W Busuttil, using the liver of a 16-year-old boy who had died in a traffic accident.

The grateful don, who was suffering from liver disease, later donated $100,000 (£68,000) to the hospital, his generosity commemorated in a plaque that reads: “In grateful recognition of the Goto Research Fund established through the generosity of Mr Tadamasa Goto.”

Jake Adelstein, a former crime reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, received death threats before he went public with the transplant story last spring, and has been living under police protection ever since.

When it was assigned to cultivate the Tokyo area in the late 1980s, the Goto-gumi stuck to what it knew best: drugs, human trafficking and extortion, before new anti-gang laws forced it to move in to more lucrative areas such as real estate and the stockmarket.

At the height of their powers, Goto’s henchmen were capable of unspeakable acts of violence, including bulldozing businesses that refused to pay protection money and administering beatings to victims in front of their families, reports said.

A 1999 leaked police file noted that “in order to achieve his goals, [Goto] uses any and all means necessary or possible. He also uses a carrot-and-stick approach to keep his soldiers in line. His group is capable of extremely violent and aggressive acts”.

Editor’s note:

I wrote a little about this several months ago. Actually, I was surprised to see someone catch it in the Japanese version of the blog, because it was a very subtle thing.

Anyway, there are several reasons that the police cite for Goto entering the priesthood. One of them is that he’s facing another trial on real estate fraud charges and would like to make a good impression on the judge. Another is that he plans to use the tax exempt status of a temple or Buddhist priest to launder yakuza money. However, on the underworld side there is a great deal of speculation that Goto is simply trying to stay alive. Everyone who was closely associated with him has now been driven out of the Yamaguchi-gumi, the largest criminal organization in Japan.

There are people worried that Goto will once again try to make a deal with US or Australian law enforcement/intelligence agencies to trade information for a new liver. He certainly seems to be trying. He knows too much; the attacks his group have made on civilians over the years have so alienated the general public and the police that in many ways he can be blamed for Japan’s gradually harsher anti-organized crime laws.

Of course, a lot of his former pals would also like to see him dead so they can steal his assets. He allegedly has close to a billion dollars saved away in stocks, property, and foreign bank accounts. If I was a hyena, I’d be wanting to strip his bones as well.

Joganji, the temple where he will be staying has a long history as a sanctuary for criminals. It’s a good choice for a safe haven.

Well, maybe he really does regret the way he’s lived his life. For a long-time gangster like Goto, getting kicked out of the Yamaguchi-gumi is like being dead, or becoming a zombie. Maybe he really does feel bad for all the misery his organization has caused via human trafficking, murder, extortion, and violence.

I kind of doubt it.

Buddhism is a wonderfully harsh religion at times. If he’s looking to escape from his enemies, the priest ploy might work. It won’t work for everything.

Neither in the sky, nor deep in the ocean, nor in a mountain-cave, nor anywhere, can a man be free from the evil he has done.

Neither in the sky, nor deep in the ocean, nor in a mountain-cave, nor anywhere, can a man be free from the power of death.

The response from readers to both the English article and the Japanese translation of the article was tremendous. We are not saying that if you’re an AKB48 fan that you’re a pedophile. We are using the band as a means of discussing the endemic and exploitive nature of the JK Business. Maybe if you really are fans of these girls, you should lean on the management to pay them better and ensure they have a decent life after their youth is misspent.

Two trolls in particular have jumped all over the article—the two trolls seem to be a team. I usually ignore them but since they seem intent on defaming my co-worker I’ll address them briefly.

I know you’re not supposed to feed the trolls, but sometimes I feel like stuffing their mouths with information until they choke on it. (Trolls: please confine your spiteful attacks to me in the future. Thank you)

In the journalist community we know them as Creepy Johnson and Creepec for their habit of harassing other journalists, especially women. Creepy Johnson began harassing me in 2011 after I failed to respond to his demand that I clear his name. (He had been denied entry into Japan). He writes to every publication I work for hassling my editors; he harasses and stalks anyone who he thinks might be my friend, especially if they’re female.

I gave him the benefit of the doubt, by not naming in him the first time I dealt with him, because it’s standard journalism policy in Japan to shield the names of the possibly mentally ill, but he outed himself anyway. I’m not giving these two the attention they crave by using their real names or twitter handles. If you want to find them, you can.

Creepy Johnson, the top half of the duo, is infamous for getting fired from Japan’s Public Broadcaster NHK, after threatening to sexually molest the children (boy and girl) of another reporter there. He left a recording on the answering machine—a not very brilliant move. Here’s an excerpt:

By all means, do go and tell your side of the story to them, motherfucker.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I heard that your daughter gives really good head… and so does your son.
Hey, I wanted to hear if your children are getting a good sleep because… when you get fired, and I get fired, you’re going to have to put your kids out of international school and into Japanese school and I’ll be waiting for them. (2007)

So Creepec, who apparently approves of his idol’s behavior sent me a list of questions demanding answers, for an “article” he’s writing. The letter is very much like one Creepy Johnson sent me years ago. I bring up the association between these two because I feel like it’s important to understand the motives of the trolls. And wow, these guys are persistent. The questions themselves are nasty and unpleasant and belittle the efforts of a friend and co-writer. This really makes me angry. But okay, here are my brief answers.

Q & A with a troll.

1). Did VICE fact check your work in any way?

Yes.*

*Journalism 101. If you ask a “yes/no” question, you will get a “yes/no” answer more often than not.

2. What was Angela Kubo’s contribution to this piece? Does she have any significant journalistic experience? Is she a 23 year old full-time employee of an accounting firm who you hired when she was working at a bar in Roppongi

Angela Kubo was an assistant editor at the Diplomat when I hired her to work for me and she was paid a good salary in a time when many interns work for free. She had graduated from college. She writes for The Japan Times and is a very talented young bilingual writer. This means she can read Japanese, something you don’t seem able to do. Her former boss Jeff Quigley certainly vouched for her work (see his full comments below) and also, as I do, finds your insinuations cheap and low. He is angry with your underhanded smears.

Unless you’re a rich kid, you have to work to pay your way through college. She did not work at “a bar in Roppongi.” She worked at an event space that serves food and drinks. I won’t name the restaurant because you’ll simply harass them. “Roppongi bar-girl”– you seem to be making some sly allusion that she was doing something shady. That’s mean-spirited. She is just starting her career but has been writing for two years. She writes ten times better than Creepy Johnson did at the peak of his self-destructive career.

For the article, she read books and numerous articles on AKB48, in Japanese, did research on the group in Japanese, proof-read for grammatical mistakes, and reached out for comments. Angela Kubo is also a Japanese-American woman who understands both cultures and went to high school in Japan. She is uniquely qualified to comment on the JK Business and how it generates problems for all women in Japan.

Where she works now is not something I feel would be acceptable to divulge to someone who I believe is a cyber stalker. Nice fishing attempt. Also: creepy question.

3. Do you feel it is fair to label the manager of AKB48 as having yakuza connections based on only rumor. Would you, for example, accuse Katy Perry’s manager of being tied to the mob if you heard such a story and were writing for an American publication?

When weekly magazine Shukan Shincho reported on AKB48 management past ties to the yakuza, no one was surprised. The JK Business is a seedy con game and who knows how to run one better than former criminal associates & loan sharks?

I’m not a Katy Perry expert. It’s not based on rumour.

See a portion of the article on this page in Japanese. There are photos. There is HUMINT from the police force. I have a list of 800 former members of the Goto-gumi and spent months nagging at them until I found some that confirmed the photos and explained to me what they knew of the AKB48 management’s past relation to organized crime. I did the same with police sources. The management has never sued the magazine or other publications for making these allegations.There are several other sources related to this. If I have time, I may put a list of them here. They are not all on-line. Some of them only exist as books and printed materials. Yep.

I have written about AKB48’s unsavoury ties in 財界展望 in Japanese and haven’t been sued yet. What else would you like? A signed confession from the management?

4. I don’t see any evidence that you actually interviewed a girl from the sex trade or a cop. Why would you expect me to believe you? Jason Blair fabricated stories. How is this piece diffeemet from one of his that got him fired.

In journalism, we don’t reveal our sources, especially if they are police officers. Or if they are victims of certain crimes which still carry a social stigma, such as rape or sexual assault. This is why VICE blurred out the faces of the women they interviewed. It is not difficult to interview women who have been in the JK business. It’s done all the time. We do it at Lighthouse, a non-profit organization in Japan.

I don’t really get your Jason Blair question but let’s take your logic and ask you a question. Your friend threatens to sexually molest children and stalks women. Since you have never publicly disavowed him, why should I believe you are any different and not a sexually perverse, potentially harmful individual? What proof do you have that you are not?

Also, you misspelled “different”.

5. Many claim that you were mainly used for fluff pieces at the Yomiuri but you claim you were on the crime beat. What is your response.

Who is many? You and Creepy Johnson? I was at the Yomiuri Shimbun from 1993 to 2005. I was in the 警視庁記者クラブ for nearly two years. Go to G-Search and look for articles written under my name. Most reporters don’t get by-lines but I wrote several feature pieces where I was credited. I have contributed to books on crime in Japan written while I was at the newspaper.

Try doing some research. You may have to take time and money to do it and translate it but be my guest. I have a real job. I’m not going to do your work for you.

I have no idea what the hell you do for a living or why you have such a man-crush on me and why you seem to be a sexist creeper who is overly sensitive to being made fun of. 😛！

PS. “Japan has one of the worst levels of gender equality in the developed world, below that of Tajikistan and Indonesia, coming in 104th out of 142 assessed countries in 2014, according to a study released Tuesday by the World Economic Forum.” That’s from a Japan Times article. You can find the original study if you like. It’s very hard for women here to break into any profession. So when white self-entitled elitists like yourself ridicule young women here trying to make it as journalists because 1) they didn’t go to journalism school 2) they worked at an event space (that served drinks) to pay their college tuition and 3) imply they must be using their looks to get work—and ignore their efforts, the articles they have written, and their past experience just for the sake of trolling–you discourage other young women from entering our profession. And that’s unfortunate.

It’s condescending and sexist attitudes like yours that encourage women and girls to go into the JK Business in the first place, because they are made to believe that they will never be taken seriously or valued for their intellect and ability. Shame on you. 恥を知れ.